business intelligence

By Iman Bahrani

As a business owner, you probably heard about the benefits of business intelligence for your startup, although you don’t exactly know what it is and why you should use it. It’s the same technological explosion that makes it possible to fit the whole world into our pockets in the shape of mobile devices.

And more often than not, you face this dilemma as you find yourself excited at the idea of what business intelligence can offer without actually knowing what it can do. Times changed though, and BI is now a booming trend.

For the first time, the possibility for startups to use BI to actualize different needs, reduce the size and cost of analytical solutions, analyze their performance, make better decisions and predict their future become possible.

What is Business Intelligence By the Way?

Business intelligence, by definition, is a set of methodologies and technologies which allow businesses to convert the data they produce on a day-to-day and operational basis into helpful insights.

In the age of digital millennia, BI becomes necessary more than ever because the modern enterprises are sitting on top of data landmine.

What’s In It For Startups?

 Business intelligence was a privilege of large companies in the past. Fortunately, in the last decade, the technology developed at a rapid pace and software became more lightweight, sturdy and readily accessible, especially for startups and small businesses.

Typically, BI is an expensive and complicated solution specifically developed for large enterprises who can afford to pay for a team of IT specialists to interpret data and manage software. However, there are available BI tools for startups and SMBs as well who are looking for solutions to obtain helpful insights from their data. The ultimate goal of BI is to help startups make strategic and informed decisions in several key ways. Check out the reasons below.

Affordable and Easy to Use

BI tools are rapidly evolving, and because of this, new technologies like cloud, open source, mobile BI and new visualization technologies are making BI tools startup-friendly.

Furthermore, open source tools for BI like BIRT and Clicdata are now supplying enterprise-like features like any other traditional BI tools for a much lesser cost. It also comes with a free community version which allows the cost-conscious customers to create analytics for free.

Boost Market Shares

One of the compelling aspects of business intelligence is that it helps small businesses increase their market share and compete with larger businesses. The usage of BI can generate valuable insights like which is the most time and cost-effective method of obtaining customers, acquisition cost, the cost of acquiring new customers, revenue per client, etc.

Reinforces Predictive Analytics

Predictive analysis can reinforce startups to look for new trends and opportunities through the use of gap analysis and competitor analysis. There are analytical tools such as R and Minitab that can collaborate with BI tools like Helical Insight and Sisense to acquire the right kind of analytics from the right audience at the right time.

Augments Operational Efficiency

Real-time business metrics and critical key performance indicators can help a startup to be more efficient in their operations. The alert features of BI tools make it possible for startups to go from a reactive mode to a proactive mode while their BI solutions send them SMS of any variations, thresholds, alerts over emails, etc.

Instant Access

Mobile BI might be a more practical platform than the traditional laptop and desktop computers for start-ups. Through mobile-based BI, start-ups can now make a  quick and easy access to visual data and reports. It’s possible to access the data outside the office, most especially when there are clients, meeting with vendors, etc.

Takeaway

Now that you know startup can benefit from business intelligence solutions, the next step is to carefully examine the features of different BI tools and find out which is the best fit for your business. Ensure that you pick the right tools to track and aggregate all the data you need into a useful and personalized format that will benefit your business.

 

Iman Bahrani is the founder of Searchical SEO, an Australian digital marketing company that caters startups, SMBs, and large-scale businesses. Visit Website http://searchicalseo.com.au for more information about his business. Apart from SEO and marketing, his interests also extend to social media management and photography and write about them on his blogs.